Why Use Kanbans to Organize Life

How using Kanbans made my life more organized and less stressful

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I’m a disorganized guy, during high school, I did not use a folder and would shove all my papers into my bag. This trait then traveled into college where my papers would then be shoved into my books and then again into my bag. While I may have been able to graduate this led to more stress than necessary when I could have kept track of what I needed to do and when it should have been finished by.

It was not until after school I came about the idea of kanban boards when I started to work as a software engineer. The idea was simple we would create tasks and then put the said tasks into a category of completion. The goal was to get the tasks to the end of the board where the category would be “Completed”. This worked well for the agile method we used at work but I wanted to try and see if this would work for daily life/projects I was working on, and it did.

There are a few reasons why I like using Kanban boards

1. Catches any unplanned tasks

2. Help keep track of progress

3. Makes you feel good

1). Catches any unplanned tasks

The thought of having to write down everything I wanted to complete was daunting at first, more so that I had to break down everything into individual tasks. But once I started to think about the things I wanted to do, the act of breaking down everything into tasks made any flaws or unexpected tasks appear in the planning phase instead of while I was trying to do my work. This helped because instead of beginning work on a project and then coming across unexpected work then discarding the project because of it I can now expect what’s coming and not be discouraged because of it.

Also, this allows you to get a better idea of how long a project will take and if the project should take a different approach because of any extra tasks that may have appeared.

2). Help keep track of progress

This point builds off of the last where catching unplanned tasks helps you keep track of your project(s) better because now you can time how long a project will take to finish. Also, you can now see the status of the project based on the percentage of completed tasks.

Keeping track of progress is important too because if anyone is like me, I will start multiple projects and quickly forget about and never finish them. Now, this puts the things I am working on in writing and thus makes it official. So if I decide not to work on a project, I must deliberately delete it. So now I can keep track of how many projects are in motion and how close they are to being finished.

3). Makes you feel good

Marking check boxes off is satisfying and if you have never done so you are missing out. I do not know about you but when a project is finished there are usually high-fives and “nice job guys” going around. But it is a bit difficult to do when it is a personal project. Using a Kanban gives you a definite point where you can pat yourself on the back (I won’t judge if it is after every single task I do too).

If you have never done so before for some strange compelling reason moving boxes to the right of a board give me the best dopamine hit. If that hasn’t had you convinced I do not know what will.

Closing Comments

If you need any recommendations for online Kanban boards I would say use Trello (Not Sponsored) because that is the one I use and it has treated me well so far.

If you would like to reach out feel free to checkout www.kevinpallikunnel.com and send me an email I would love to chat.